The City-State of Boston : The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630-1865

A groundbreaking history of early America that shows how Boston built and sustained an independent city-state in New England before being folded into the United StatesIn the vaunted annals of America’s founding, Boston has long been held up as an exemplary “city upon a hill” and the “cradle of liberty” for an independent United States.Wresting this revered metropolis from these misleading, tired clichés, The City-State of Boston highlights Boston’s overlooked past as an autonomous city-state, and in doing so, offers a pathbreaking and brilliant new history of early America.Following Boston’s development over three centuries, Mark Peterson discusses how this self-governing Atlantic trading center began as a refuge from Britain’s Stuart monarchs and how-through its bargain with the slave trade and ratification of the Constitution-it would tragically lose integrity and autonomy as it became incorporated into the greater United States.The City-State of Boston peels away layers of myth to o